Matt Moring of Altus Press has just published a collection of stories by Fred Nebel that not only is an excellent collection of hardboiled fiction but also is quite historically significant. Fred Nebel (1903-1967) was one of the early Black Mask authors who started to write detective stories in the hardboiled style. He sold his first story to the magazine in 1926 and editor Joe Shaw encouraged him to join Dashiell Hammett and John Carroll Daly in the writing of hardboiled, tough, fast action stories.

Nebel had a long running series starring Captain Steve MacBride and a reporter by the name of Kennedy. This was followed by a later series about a private eye named Donahue. When Harry Steeger started Popular Publications, one of his early titles was Dime Detective and he offered Nebel and some of the other Black Mask authors a higher rate if they would also write for him.

The top writers for Black Mask were probably getting around 3 cents a word, so this meant an increase to 4 cents, which at the time was very good money. a 10,000 word novelette could bring in a $400 check. In the depression era this was like over $4,000 in today’s money.

The first issue of Dime Detective appeared with the date of November 1931, and it contained the first Nebel story for the magazine. Nebel during the period 1931-1937 would go on to write 44 of these hard driving, tough tales, all starring Jack Cardigan of the Cosmos Detective Agency. At first he was in charge of the St. Louis branch but then moved on to the main headquarters located in New York city.

I’ve been collecting Dime Detective since 1969 and have read almost all the Cardigan stories, so when I received this book, I thought I’d just read a couple stories to make sure I still felt the same way about the quality and then file the book away with my other hardboiled books written by Hammett, Chandler, James Cain, and Paul Cain.

However, I was surprised as to how well the stories held up to a second reading and before I knew it, I had read all of them in a space of a few days.

Altus Press plans to publish all 44 Cardigan stories and this first volume contains the first eleven, written in 1931-1932. There will be not only an additional three volumes, each around 400 pages, but also volumes reprinting Nebel’s series starring Kennedy and MacBride, and Donahue. The book has a nice introduction by Will Murray and each story has the original John Fleming Gould illustrations.

Now, though I’ve mentioned Nebel with such names as Hammett and Chandler, I do not by any means place him on the same level. They are at the very top. I would place these stories on the the second level along with such writers as Paul Cain, Norbert Davis, Robert Reeves, Merle Constiner, etc, most of whom wrote for both Black Mask and Dime Detective.

These writers I consider to be very good to excellent, while Hammett and Chandler are in the great class, often considered legitimate, no doubt about it, American Literature.

So this collection and the future ones which will soon be published by Altus Press, gets my highest recommendation. If you try and collect the original pulps you will run into two problems. The first being that they are now very rare and hard to find, and the second being the prices are very high. Copies of Dime Detective in the 1930’s are now over the $100 per issue level and some are selling for $200 or $300 each. The Chandler issues are even higher.

One interesting subject is discussed by Will Murray in the introduction and has also been covered before by Steve Mertz and others. This involves the reaction that Joe Shaw encountered when he was compiling the stories for The Hard-Boiled Omnibus, the first hardboiled anthology, published in 1946. He wrote Fred Nebel asking for permission to publish one of his Black Mask stories and Nebel turned him down saying that he considered his pulp work “dated” and not up to the quality of his best work.

This is another example of how blind some authors can be concerning the quality of their own fiction. In the early 1930’s Nebel broke into the slick market and he actually considered this slick work to be far better than his pulp stories. He certainly got paid a lot more and this must of blinded him to the relative quality.

The slicks had a very high percentage of women readers and the editors felt that stories should have a strong love or romance element. Nebel was willing to write this type of fiction for such high paying magazines as the Saturday Evening Post, Liberty, Collier’s, and Woman’s Home Companion.

I collect the slicks also and have read some of Nebel’s slick work and it cannot even begin to compare to his best pulp work as written for Black Mask and Dime Detective. I can understand him writing the slick formula because the pay was so high compared to the pulp rates. He was receiving thousands of dollars for short slick work compared to hundreds for pulp novelettes.

He also wrote three novels and thought these would be remembered but nothing ever came of his hardcover writing career. While his slick magazine work has been completely forgotten, his pulp stories have appeared in just about every hardboiled pulp anthology. Mysterious Press even published six of the Cardigan novelets in a paper edition over 20 years ago but it failed to sell.

Copies of this collection are easy to obtain for around $30 for a high quality paper edition and for $10 extra you can get a hardcover. I recommend the hardcover because of the historical and literary significance of the book. You can order from the Altus Press website or from Mike Chomko Books. Amazon.com also carries the paper edition.

I encourage all lovers of hardboiled and pulp fiction to support this publishing project.

Consider another copy sold! I have a few of those Mysterious Press anthologies of Dime Detective stories (two Carroll John Daly collections and Black Mask Boys) but never found the Nebel one with the Cardigan stories. Having them all between two covers is perfect. And who wouldn’t want that cover!

John, I’m very glad you mentioned the cover of THE COMPLETE CASEBOOK OF CARDIGAN. I checked my copy and it is from the April 1936 issue. The contents page credits the great Walter Baumhofer as the artist and it is from the Nebel story, “Lead Poison”. It shows Cardigan rescuing a girl as a villain prepares to stab him in the back. The cover really captures Cardigan, unruly hair, topcoat, and all.

By the way the April 1936 issue is one of the most impressive. The novella is a Race Williams story by Carroll John Daly; Fred MacIsaac has a story about his series character, The Rambler; Cornell Woolrich is present with a story titled, “The Living Lie Down With the Dead”; Robert Sidney Bowen has his series character Kip Lacey; and of course Nebel with Cardigan. In other words all the stories star series characters except for the one by Woolrich.

Walker,
Another great review as usual. Like you, I already have all the Dime Detective appearances in pulp form and when I found out Altus was releasing these volumes I figured to save a few bucks and skip over buying them, but now after reading what you say above, I’ll now have to splurge for the hardback editions! Wasn’t it you who thought the Dime stories were actually better than the Black Mask ones because the editor at Popular gave their authors more leeway than Joe Shaw?

Paul brings up a point that I have been talking about for many years now. The BLACK MASK years when Joseph Shaw was editor are very significant and of great historical interest(1926-1936). Though he did print some humorous stories, for the most part he encouraged his writers to concentrate on the hardboiled, tough style.

However DIME DETECTIVE, especially starting in the mid and late 1930’s, encouraged authors to write humorous stories with wacky and bizarre plots. They also were hardboiled but especially under editor Ken White, the stories are now more interesting than the ultra hardboiled plots. You can have too much of a good thing!

Thanks so much for the review, Walker. Believe me, reading the roughly half million words that comprise the 44 Cardigans in about 3 months was something else.

The rest of the series will be out over the course of 2012, so there’ll be no delay on these. And look forward to many more Dime Detective collections down the road. There’s so much that’s never seen reprinting.

I hope you’ll not overlook all of the series characters in the other detective pulps, too. BLACK MASK, of course, but DETECTIVE STORY and DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY as well.

I know, I know, you’re only one guy and there are only so many hours in a day! I ordered this book as soon as I saw it was out, and I can only echo Walker’s description of it, not only as historically significant, but a book that’s immensely fun to read too.

And for the benefit of everyone else, let me not forget to mention the book you did that came out at the same time as this one by Nebel:

The Complete Adventures of Oke Oakley and Secrets, Inc., by Frederick C. Davis.

“From 1933 to 1935, Frederick C. Davis chronicled the cases of Hollywood P.I. firm Secrets, Inc. Led by Clay “Oke” Oakley and assisted by Cherry Morris and Archibald Brixey, Secrets, Inc., investigated some of the weirdest and most ingenious crimes in the long history of Dime Detective Magazine—all centering around the film industry. Never before reprinted, this lost classic is available for the first time in nearly 80 years.”

Great review as usual. An interesting bit of trivia is that the cover for The Complete Casebook of Cardigan Volume 1 is the only one of the 44 Cardigan ‘issues’ that the cover art illustrates a story. For such a long running character this surprised me.
Up next from Altus is Tough As Nails The Complete Cases of Donahue, only 10 years in the making.
2012 looks to be a great year for Nebel with 5 titles coming into print from Altus Press. More in 2013. I believe an adventure collection from Black Dog should come into print sometime in the next year or so.

Forgive me Walker. But I do want to thank those at Altus Press for also making some of these available in e-book format.

Certainly pulp fans will want your beautiful print recreations. But I live in one room on disability, I have no room for print books nor can afford the low and fair price you have for your print copies. Without your e-book format and its incredible great price I would be unable to read these great forgotten writers and series characters.

I’m glad to read Matt Moring’s comment about many more DIME DETECTIVE collections coming in the future. There is so much of interest, for instance The Rambler Murphy series by Fred MacIsaac, the Bail Bond Dodd series by Norbert Davis, Mr Maddox by T.T. Flynn, and Jeffrey Wren series by Fleming-Roberts, among others.

As Steve points out, there was another collection issued the same time as the Cardigan book and I recommend it also.(See link to it in Steve’s comment #6).

Another great book could be compiled from DETECTIVE STORY in the 1940’s. I’m talking about the dozen or so novelets that editor Daisy Bacon managed to get Roger Torrey to write before his early death from alcoholism. Excellent hardboiled fiction.

Rob Preston mentions the Donahue series from BLACK MASK, which should be coming out soon, also from Altus Press. This is ultra hardboiled, even more so than the Cardigan series. TOUGH AS NAILS is a great title for Donahue.

Michael, though I’m always griping about the e-books, there are a couple of instances where I agree they are needed. You mention one instance involving yourself and I certainly agree that if I had to downsize to smaller quarters, I would have to get one. At this late stage of the game, reading is a real habit and addiction with me. One I won’t be able to give up until it’s time to give everything up!

For us non-collectors of the old mags, it is often nigh impossible to read a good chunk of what was hard-boiled.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but a lot more was published in the magazines, than ever saw book covers.
Then again, a lot of the books are out of print, and ,if you can get them at all, have asking prices from 5 books to a good used car.

Hi Steve, I’ve got plans for both all the titles you mention… you’re right, I need an intern to get all these out!

Michael, I’ll eventually do ebook versions of Cardigan & co., but it’s tough to create new books and ebooks at the same time. Right now, I’m concentrating on finishing several of the half-done books I have as well as converting my older titles to ebook format. I’m personally not a huge fan of ebooks, but it’s mainly due to the cold display of the text. At least on the iPad & iPhone you can use the iBookstore… their display of text is mighty nice. Still, you’d be missing out on the design and interior illustrations that are in the print edition. But I admit to having my phone filled with my ebooks… it’s pretty cool to see them in that format.

Re: Tough as Nails, wait til you see this book. Rob did 99% of the work on this collection, and it should make its debut at the Windy City show next month. And it’ll be budget priced… 600+ pages for less than $30. You can’t beat that.

And yes, there are plans for Norbert Davis; hopefully for later this year. There’s a lot to mine in Dime Detective. I’m still scratching my head as to why so little from that title been reprinted. Sure, there have been several book collections, but when you think of all the stories over the history of that title… 273 issues, about 6, 8, 10 stories in each… there’s a lot still to unearth.

I agree about DIME DETECTIVE being full of excellent stories, many of which have not been reprinted as yet. And even with some of the series that have been reprinted I’m not sure the books are really out there to be read. For instance, the publisher Battered Silicon Dispatch Box has released two very important collections but they are enormous books priced beyond the means of many collectors, or maybe they just don’t want to pay the price.

I’m talking about The Dean collection by Merle Constiner, 19 long novelets from DIME DETECTIVE in the 1940’s and the Bill Brent collection by Fred Davis, also from DIME in the 1940’s. I have these books and paid $75 each for them a couple years ago from the publisher. They don’t seem to be available from anyone else except for Mike Chomko Books. Also, I’ve heard readers complain about the size and format of the volumes.

Altus Press books are more inexpensive and available easily from their website or Amazon.com. Also they are very attractive volumes and not as unwieldy as Battered Silicon Dispatch Box.

Matt, you mention the Donahue collection will be available at Windy City. This is a very important book also and one I want to have in the hardcover edition. Will the hardcover be there also?

Matthew, while I enjoy my Kindle, I also have the Kindle for Mac so I can enjoy full color covers on HD 27 inch screen. If you are curious, on my Mac your beautiful covers for HELL ON FRIDAY – JOHNNY SAXON TRILOGY (William G. Bogart) and THUNDER JIM WADE – COMPLETE COLLECTION (Henry Kuttner) are sized at 8 and 1/2 inches wide and 9 and 1/2 inches tall. DOC SAVAGE – DESERT DEMONS (Lester Dent and Will Murray) is 9 and 1/4 inches wide and 10 and 1/2 inches wide.

I am patiently waiting for e-books of CASEBOOK OF SEEKAY & OTHER PROTOTYPES OF THE AVENGER (Paul Ernst) and WEIRD ADVENTURES OF THE BLOND ADDER (Lester Dent). But you do seem to have your schedule full adding new titles in print format.

Walker— we’re still talking about the pricing of Donahue. I think the push is to price this as a break-even point-like $25-30 for the softcover, about $5-10 more for the hardcover, to get people to try the stuff out. There’ll be ebooks of the stories too.

Michael— glad to hear the covers look good too. Apple recently started asking for 768px wide images to fill the iPad, so they’ll be even bigger, like on the new Doc Savage novel coming in a few weeks. BTW I hope the formatting looks good on the Kindle. I hand code them as epub files and then convert them, but all the Kindle emulators I have display the result differently.

Also, I’ve been having my older titles re-proofread in preparation for ebook conversion, so that also affects what titles are available. The batch I’m working on now include the two remaining Dr. Death books, Ka-Zar, and Frank Eisgruber’s Gangland’s Doom, the Shadow history book.

I hope no one minds, but I also wanted to plug a really cool thing I’m working on now, one that hasn’t been publicized yet. It’s the 30th anniversary issue of Tom Johnson’s Echoes. I’m working on the layout now, and it should easily be the biggest pulp fanzine ever. Even without tidying up the layout and adding images, it’s 300 pages long. I’d expect it to clock in at 350+ pages once it’s done. And we’ll be spilling the beans on a great find we just discovered: a hitherto-unknown manuscript from the 30s of an unpublished adventure of a well-known pulp hero. Tom’s just sent me the article detailing it.

This Echoes special will be out in June, and I’m sure we’ll be plugging it as much as possible in the coming weeks.

And thanks to everyone for supporting these books. I’ve always said that I just do the books I want on my own shelf, but I’m glad that others feel the same way.

In 1969, when I started reading and collecting BLACK MASK, DIME DETECTIVE, DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, I was really surprised to find than many of the stories were of such high quality. Yet they were buried in the old back issues of the pulp magazines.

For many years I kept hoping a publisher would come along and make a success at reprinting this excellent, forgotten fiction. Every now and then, an anthology would appear from the detective pulps but these were all one shots like HARD-BOILED DETECTIVES, which was a collection from DIME DETECTIVE, or HARDBOILED DICKS edited by Ron Goulart. Mysterious Press tried with the six paperback collections back in the late 1980’s but that was a failure.

Now we have Altus Press which so far has published over 75 books, most of them pulp reprints. This publisher is seriously digging into the pulps and reprinting some lost classics. For instance Frederick Nebel was one of the early writers of hardboiled fiction and deserves this recognition. The books are very attractive with interesting introductions. Often the interior pulp illustrations are included.

Matt Moring is not just publishing a few books; he is publishing many collections and has an ambitious schedule of some amazing titles coming up. I know I’ll be supporting his future efforts and I hope many more readers and collectors feel the same way.

Matt, the formatting on Kindle and Kindle for Mac looks great. I especially enjoy the table of contents links. The bookmark system for Kindle is near perfect. Links to each chapter might not be necessary, but the table of content links to each book in a collection are valuable for a reader who wants to read the books out of order or wish to skip one they may have all ready read.

All this discussion about great works forgotten since first published long ago has me wondering about the option of Kickstarter. I have donated several times to Kickstarter projects from film documentary on Tower Records to several book projects for cartoonists. Why not see if the public can help publishers such as Matt find the financing to get these work back in print?

Kickstarter is new to me. I don’t know if Matt would be interested, but I’ve looked at their website, and I’m impressed. I can see quite a few projects that could use some support, and they seem to be getting it:

I second the calls for N.Davis and T.T. Flynn collections. How about some “Daffy Dill” stories by R. Sale? Maybe even some “Broadway Squad” yarns by the under collected John Lawrence?.
I’m on a roll now; Fletcher Flora? Tinsley? Torrey? John K. Butler?

Just in case you are not aware, there is a John K. Butler collection titled, AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT. It collects all the Steve Midnight stories from DIME DETECTIVE. Amazon.com has it for $15.

There also is a recent Roger Torrey collection called BODYGUARD published by Black Dog Books. However we still need a collection of the stories that Torrey did for Daisy Bacon, editor of DETECTIVE STORY.

Hey, Walker, I learned a short time ago that Matt Moring will be doing a collection of Fred Nebel’s Sgt. Brinkhaus stories that appeared in DETECTIVE ACTION STORIES, DIME DETECTIVE, and DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY. Unfortunately, the series ran only eleven stories, but are as good as his other crime fiction. A few years ago I asked Tom Roberts about the Roger Torrey stories from DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE. He said Street and Smith, who hold the rights,find the expense involved, lawyers and the paperwork, not cost effective. This is sad, those stories are among Torrey’s best. Probably due to Daisy Bacon prowess as an editor.

Joel, I’m looking forward to the Sgt. Brinkhaus collection from Altus Press. They are doing some excellent reprints from the pulps.

Concerning Roger Torrey, I agree that his best work was for Daisy Bacon when she was editing Street & Smith’s DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE in the 1940’s. The collection titled BODYGUARD was interesting but representative of Torrey’s work for PRIVATE DETECTIVE and SPICY DETECTIVE. He wrote dozens of stories for the Trojan line of pulps, some good and some not so good. But his work for Daisy Bacon in DETECTIVE STORY was first class. Hopefully someday we will see the dozen or so novelets that he did for Daisy reprinted in a collection.